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Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa has not held back on his assessment of the organisation and security present at Copa America in the aftermath of his players’ clash with fans.
Darwin Nunez is one of 11 Uruguay players under investigation after being involved in the melee that broke out in the stands after their semi-final tie.
Liverpool’s No. 9 was in the thick of it as he sought to protect his family and those of his team-mates after fights broke out in the section they were seated in.
No immediate bans have been issued, but Uruguay still have a case to answer to. And ahead of their third-place playoff against Canada, Bielsa held nothing back.
He unleashed a full attack on the lack of organisation at the tournament and how his players had no other choice but to act.
In a long, fiery press conference, Bielsa said: “Someone asks if I am afraid of sanctions when the only logic that prevails in this situation is that mothers with babies in their arms, wives, sisters were attacked by spectators.
Here’s the video of Nunez jumping up into the stands. He is told something by his significant other before he goes ballistic. #Uruguay #Colombia #CopaAmerica pic.twitter.com/Wvg8TXGi0b
— Favian Renkel (@FavianRenkel) July 11, 2024
“The protection of the spectator has nothing to do with the football team or the federation.
“You know whose responsibility it is, and it turns out that the question is whether I am afraid of sanctions.
“What you should be asking me, if you had a minimum amount of sympathy, is if the players have received an apology for those who are responsible for caring for every single spectator.
“You’re asking me if I’m scared of sanctions? How am I going to be afraid of a sanction that should be impossible to even happen?
“The only thing I can tell you is that the players reacted like any human being would have done.
“If you see that if what happened happens anyways, and that there’s supposedly another process — an escape hatch, let’s say — and both things fail, and you see your woman, or your mother, or a baby, being attacked, what would you do?
“You’d ask whether they’re going to punish the people who defended themselves? If they did not do it, they would have been condemned by all of us.
“When you see that there is a violent act, of course, who is going to be in favour of a violent reaction?
“But the first thing you have to see is what the reaction is in response to, and if there would have been the possibility of doing it differently.
Bielsa was not finished there, later going on to call organisers “a plague of liars” over conditions of pitches and at various training grounds.
The Uruguay manager’s comments came shortly after their federation released a statement that said its “players’ attitude was inevitable and natural.”
It “generated an unjustified but humanly understandable reaction” to the “context of moments of nervousness and desperation in which women and children were held hostage.”
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